Japan Refuses To Kick Its Whale-Killing Habit

Japan has slaughtered 30 minke whales off its northeast coast, in
the first hunt since the UN's top court ordered Tokyo to stop
killing the animals in the Antarctic, the government said.

The Japanese whaling fleet that left the northeastern fishing
town of Ayukawa in April completed its mission last week, the
Fisheries Agency said.

It was the first campaign since the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) said in March that Japan's annual expedition to the
Southern Ocean was a commercial activity masquerading as
research.

The hunt, which takes place in spring and autumn in coastal
waters and in the northwestern Pacific is also classified as
"research whaling", but was not at issue in the ICJ case, which
only addressed the Southern Ocean hunt.

Whalers killed 16 male and 14 female mammals, with an average
length of about six metres (20 feet), the agency said.

AFP

Japan has hunted whales under a loophole in the 1986 global
moratorium that allows lethal research on the mammals, but has
made no secret of the fact that their meat ends up in restaurants
and fish markets.

Tokyo called off the 2014-15 season for its Antarctic hunt, and
said it would redesign the controversial whaling mission in a bid
to make it more scientific.

Anti-whaling activists and nations, including Australia and New
Zealand, had hoped that Tokyo would use the cover afforded by the
ICJ ruling to extricate itself from a hardened position that
whaling is an integral part of the culture and must be defended.

Critics point out that while whale meat was once an important
source of protein, few Japanese now eat it, despite government
subsidies.

However, a recent poll by a major national newspaper found a
majority of those questioned supported Japan's right to hunt the
mammals.

Observers say the tactics of anti-hunt groups like Sea Shepherd,
whose boats have harassed whalers in the Southern Ocean, has
galvanized support among the population, where demands for an end
to the mission are sometimes painted as cultural imperialism.